Information for the Westdale Secondary School Rowing Community

JOHN BENNETT REGATTA, BUFFALO, MAY 6

We have decided, based on how you are rowing after just 6 rows…and based on the long term forecast, that we will send our whole squad to the Buffalo Regatta on May 6th!
Some VERY IMPORTANT NOTES on this regatta!

1. If you are NOT able to go, PLEASE tell me immediately, if not sooner!

2. You MUST have a passport to cross the border.

3. If your parents are not able to go, you MUST have a letter stating permission to travel with whoever they are going with, and it must be notarized by a lawyer.

4. We will be racing as Leander Boat Club, NOT Westdale SS. Therefore, every rower and coxie needs to have, or purchase, a white long sleeve shirt AND a red t-shirt. This will be our racing uniform for that day. If your entire crew has a Leander unisuit, then you may use this as your racing uniform—but you must all match.

5. We will be holding a good majority of our novices to one race each. Most experienced rowers will be racing twice.

6. REGATTA FORMAT. Morning races will be time trials. The novices will learn a lot about time trials in the next couple of weeks. Crews are sent off at about 15 second intervals and must race down the course as fast as possible. Each crew is timed and the four fastest times make the final.

7. This is a fairly difficult regatta to make a final at, so some of you may only race just once on that day. Some of the fields have 20 or more entries, so to be top four is pretty solid. Race as hard as you possibly can–even if we don’t make the final in a particular event, we will see where you rank out of all the entries.

8. In order to keep things WAY simpler for us (me), we are going to split the cost in the following way: I will take the whole cost and divide by the number of rowers (coxies traditionally don’t pay entry fees). I will then add $7US to each person who races twice and subtract that amount evenly from the bills of those who race once. A ROUGH estimate right now would be: For those who race once, $21.28US (entry) + $7CDN (trailer). If you race twice: $34.70US (entry) + 7.00CDN trailer. As soon as I get bill back and confirm the exchange rate, as well as the trailer invoice from the club, I will send these out. **NOTE** that ALL other regattas this season will be covered by the $75 spring fee that will be payable at the end of April. Some have already paid it for which I thank you. I will be chasing this once we get through Chili Cookoff.

Any questions about this, please let me know. We’ve decided to do this because we believe that the rowers have had a GOOD winter of training and deserve to race. Plus, it allows us to hit the ground running in St. Catharines the following week, having experienced a regatta already.